Manager's thoughts after the Capital One Cup defeat at Elland Road
Graham Turner felt the scoreline didn’t do his side’s performance justice after the 4-0 reverse at Leeds. Two goals in each half sent the Yorkshire side into the second round draw but Turner admitted that mistakes were made and lessons needed to be learned.
“I think we stared the game extremely well and we created a lot of good chances,” said Town’s manager. “But their goalkeeper made a couple of good saves and we found ourselves two goals down after dominating the play in my view. But we played into their hands. We warned the players before the game and again at half time that Leeds set themselves up to press the ball high up the pitch. The mistakes we made proved very costly but at the other end we put some good set plays in there. I don’t think they had any more chances or any better chances than we did today but they were a bit more clinical.”
The second goal scored by Luke Varney had a suspicion of offside about it but Turner wouldn’t be drawn into the argument: “I’m looking at it as our own fault,” he said. “We dwelt on the ball and allowed Leeds to close us down which we shouldn’t have done. Whatever happened after that I’m not too sure but it was a crucial goal obviously. I thought we started the second half well and it’s for the people present to decide whether or not 4-0 was a bit of a travesty. There are a lot of positives to take from the game and a few things we need to improve upon before we go to Sheffield United next week.
“I was pleased with our movement and our ability to get hold of the ball particularly up front bringing others into play, and the quality of our set pieces was decent even though we didn’t get on the end of them sometimes. It takes four or five matches to get into your fitness and it was a good game from that exercise. We’re disappointed to go out but Leeds was always going to be a tough hurdle.”
Turner didn’t feel that the result was likely to affect his players ahead of the trip to Sheffield in seven days time: “We’ll study the DVD and players can take a look at things themselves. There were patches when we played well and some when we didn’t do so well which led to them scoring. We’ll analyse that and go again in training. Darren Jones faces a tough few days ahead if he’s to be considered for the Sheffield trip and we’ll see if he has a chance by the middle of next week. We have two very young central defenders and they are bound to learn some lessons from what’s happened today.”
The Town chief also paid tribute to the 1200 or so who travelled across the Pennines: “They were terrific and made a lot of noise which we appreciate. I hope they go away thinking that the scoreline didn’t reflect the quality of our performance and that they have the confidence to travel again with us next week. We said there would be hiccups. We’ve come to a big club and a big ground and we’ve paid a heavy price but they will have been pleased I hope with the way we played at times.”